Suppose an officer conducts a traffic stop. During the stop, the officer gets a hunch that the driver may have drugs in the car. Can the officer ask the driver for consent to search the car? Even without reasonable suspicion? Does the time it takes to ask for consent, or the time it takes to conduct the search, unlawfully extend the stop? I’ll try to answer these important questions in this post.
Motor Vehicles
DMV Hearings and Procedural Due Process
Earlier this year, the North Carolina Court of Appeals in Edwards v. Jessup, 282 N.C. App. 213 (2022), considered whether a license revocation hearing in which a hearing officer employed by the Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) both elicited and evaluated evidence, ultimately ordering revocation, violated the petitioning driver’s right to due process. Spoiler alert: The Court held that the DMV hearing process did not violate the driver’s constitutional rights. Continue reading to learn why.
State v. Rouse and Circumstantial Evidence of Driving
To prove impaired driving, the State must establish that the defendant drove a vehicle while impaired. A person drives when he or she is “actual physical control of a vehicle which is in motion or which has the engine running.” G.S. 20-4.01(25). Sometimes the State may establish driving through direct evidence. For example, a law enforcement officer or another witness may observe the defendant driving and may testify to that fact. In other cases, a law enforcement officer may encounter the person the officer believes was driving after the driving has concluded, perhaps in or near the car or at some other location. In those cases, the State may seek to establish driving based on circumstantial evidence. The Court of Appeals’ recent opinion in State v. Rouse, 2022-NCCOA-496, __ N.C. App. ___ (July 19, 2022), considers when such circumstantial evidence is sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss.
2021 Statistical Report for Driving While Impaired Convictions Now Available
Last week, Jamie blogged about the 2021 Structured Sentencing Statistical Report from the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission. As Jamie noted, that report contains detailed information related to felony and misdemeanor sentences imposed in Fiscal Year 2021, including the most commonly used felony grid cell, the number of convictions by district, average probation length, and typical sentencing outcomes for the most charged offenses. Because that report analyzes felony and misdemeanor convictions and sentences imposed under the Structured Sentencing Act, it does not include information about one of the most commonly charged misdemeanors in North Carolina: driving while impaired, which is sentenced under the sentencing scheme set out in G.S. 20-179. The Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission prepares a separate report each year analyzing those convictions, and the Driving While Impaired Convictions Statistical Report for Fiscal Year 2021 is available here. Read on for highlights from the report, which contains data about convictions under G.S. 20-179 from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021.
Does NC DMV Learn of Convictions in Other States?
(Author’s Note: This post was updated on July 22, 2022, to note that NC DMV reports all in-state convictions for drivers licensed in another state to the state of record.)
If a North Carolina resident with a North Carolina driver’s license is convicted of a motor vehicle offense in Virginia, will the NC DMV learn of the conviction?
Yes.
If a Virginia resident with a Virginia driver’s license is convicted of a motor vehicle offense in North Carolina, will the Virginia DMV learn of the conviction?
Yes.
Keep reading to find out why.
Enforcing Ignition Interlock Requirements
I wrote last week about changes to North Carolina’s ignition interlock statutes that were effective June 1, 2022. As I noted in that post, one of those changes was to eliminate the time and purpose restrictions that otherwise apply to limited driving privileges if ignition interlock is required as a condition and the person is driving a designated vehicle equipped with ignition interlock. Another was to require vendors to waive a portion of ignition interlock costs for a person ordered by a court or required by statute to install ignition interlock but who is unable to afford the system. These changes and others enacted by S.L. 2021-82 were recommended by the Ignition Interlock Subcommittee of the Statewide Impaired Driving Task Force as part of a package of reforms designed to expand the use of ignition interlock and, in turn, to improve traffic safety. It remains to be seen whether the legislation will have that effect.
One determinant may be whether drivers see the benefit of broader driving privileges as being worth the cost of ignition interlock. A judge may be more likely to impose the condition when it is sought by an applicant. Another factor may be whether judges believe that ignition interlock is an effective countermeasure to impaired driving (researchers in fact identify interlock as among the leading countermeasures) and whether ignition interlock requirements in limited driving privileges are enforced in practice. This post addresses this last issue by reviewing the mechanisms for enforcing ignition interlock requirements and the sanctions for violation of ignition interlock conditions imposed by a court as part of a limited driving privilege.
Ignition Interlock Changes Effective June 1
Last year, the General Assembly enacted significant changes to the state’s ignition interlock laws. See S.L. 2021-182. Some of those changes became effective June 1 and are reflected in revised limited privilege order and application forms published by the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC). This post reviews those changes and links to the revised forms.
Does an NC Limited Driving Privilege Authorize Driving in Another State?
Conviction of a host of criminal offenses (many, but not all involving vehicles) may lead to the revocation of a person’s driver’s license by the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles (NCDMV). See, e.g., G.S. 20-13.2, 20-16, 20-17, 20-17.3. For certain types of revocations when statutory criteria are satisfied, a state court judge may issue a limited driving privilege that authorizes a person to drive during certain hours for limited purposes, notwithstanding the revocation of the person’s driver’s license. See, e.g., G.S. 20-179.3. Questions occasionally arise about whether the issuance of such a privilege authorizes driving in another state.
Greenville’s Red Light Camera Program Ruled Unconstitutional
Author’s Note: The opinion discussed below was reversed in relevant part by Fearrington v. City of Greenville, ___ N.C. ___, 900 S.E.2d 851 (2024).
Two men cited in separate instances for failing to stop at red light camera locations in Greenville, NC filed declaratory judgment actions arguing that the city’s red light camera enforcement program violated the state constitution. Among other claims, the men argued that the program violated the Fines and Forfeitures Clause contained in Article IX, Section 7 of the North Carolina Constitution because the local school board received less than the clear proceeds of the civil penalties the city collected for violations. The Court of Appeals in Fearrington v. City of Greenville, 2022 NCCOA 158, __ N.C. App. __ (2022), agreed, holding that the funding framework violated the state constitution.
Fatal Crashes Increase in 2020 and 2021
The negative impacts of the pandemic are far-reaching and well-documented. They include death, illness, disruptions in school and work, strains on the health care system, and backlogs in the courts. But if I had been asked back in March 2020 to predict the impact the pandemic would have on traffic safety, I would have guessed incorrectly. I might have thought that since fewer people would be regularly driving to offices during predictable times of the day, traffic fatalities would decline. I would have been wrong. NC DOT analysis of traffic crashes during the pandemic revealed that while vehicle crashes decreased dramatically following the Governor’s declaration of a state of emergency in March 2020 and continued to remain below 2019 and prior year averages for the rest of the year, fatal crashes (which fortunately are a small subset – less than 1 percent — of total crashes) did not precipitously decline. Instead, they surpassed 2019 numbers and the five-year average during several weeks in the spring, summer and fall of 2020.
As it turns out, this upward trend in fatal crashes was not limited to 2020 or to North Carolina. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published in October 2021 a statistical projection of traffic fatalities nationwide for the first half of that year. See NHTSA, National Center for Statistics and Analysis, Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities for the First Half (January – June) of 2021, Traffic Safety Facts: Crash – Stats (October 2021) [hereinafter Early Estimate]. That projection showed a nearly 20 percent increase in fatalities in motor vehicle crashes from the first half of 2020. The calculation – that 20,160 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes from January to June 2021 – represents the highest number of fatalities during the first half of a year since 2006 and the highest half-year percentage increase since 1979, when the Fatality Analysis Reporting System began recording data. NHTSA estimates that fatalities increased in all ten of its regions. The 10 percent increase in North Carolina’s region, Region 3, was second-to-lowest, with the highest increase (26 percent) in Region 10, which includes Alaska, Washington, and other Northwestern states.